Tom Bennett

He'd been saving it 'for when UB40 got back together'. But Lance has found a use for the bag of 'double skunk' hidden in his shed. He's finally been granted membership to the WMRC (White Man's Reggae Club) and he's baked some special muffins for his initiation ceremony. Sadly, Lance has left the muffins out at work. What could possibly go wrong?

As usual with PhoneShop, plenty is made of a fairly skinny storyline. This is mainly thanks to the superb, intuitive and very funny cast. Kudos in particular to Tom Bennett, whose weed meltdown sees him dominating the cowering Jerwayne and Ashley like some sort of avenging home counties angel. PhoneShop didn't seem like an obvious stayer when it started. But, as we begin the third series, it's proved to be a minor but surprisingly enduring pleasure.

When it comes to top pedigree, Family Tree (BBC Two) is hanging off some high branches. Boasting Chris O'Dowd, a big (well, at least medium) Hollywood cheese these days, as the central character and Christopher (Best In Show) Guest on writing and creating duties, you might expect this to be a big deal movie release. Instead, it's an oddly understated sitcom.

O'Dowd is a fresh and engaging comic talent. He breathes believable life into Tom Chadwick, one of life's drifters, whose aimless existence takes a surprising turn when he's left a chest containing random bits and bobs by a long-forgotten great aunt. Among the bobs is an old photo of a military gent, which sets our Tom off on a Who Do You Think You Are?-style jaunt.

The trouble is, everyone else in Tom's life is mildly bonkers, from his ventriloquist sis to the crackpot in the corner shop. Tom Bennett is a notable exception, good value as best mate Pete, but he has to fight his way through the gaggle of eccentrics choking Family Tree at the roots. And that confessional speaking-to-camera trick? All too wearily familiar.

Watching this new Christopher Guest sitcom is a peculiar experience. For example, the pieces to camera can look like a hackneyed device, worn out through over-use. But then, if Christopher Guest can't utilise pieces to camera from his characters, who can? For a particular kind of arch, absurd, self-aware comedy, he wrote the rulebook.

This feels like a very new venture for Guest. Not only is Family Tree his first TV project, but it's more plot-heavy and open-ended than his film work: the box of family treasures given to laconic lost soul Tom Chadwick (Chris O'Dowd) could be the passport to as much digression, misadventure and silliness as Guest and the cast fancy, as Tom follows his familial trail through Britain and America.

The Family Tree ensemble also contains Michael McKean, Nina Conti, co-writer Jim Piddock, Tom Bennett and eventually, such mainstays of Guest's films as Fred Willard. So, even if this opening episode feels slightly low-key, it seems reasonable to assume that we're in safe comedic hands.

Nina Conti and PhoneShop's Tom Bennett join cast

Nina Conti and Tom Bennett have joined as regulars on the cast of Family Tree.

A terrestrial debut for this promising sitcom, which started out as a pilot in the channel's Comedy Showcase season before earning a full series on E4 last autumn. In the first of six episodes, graduate recruit Christopher (Tom Bennett) starts work in a high-street phone shop. Viewers who have dealt with a sales rep recently will be shuddering with recognition.

PhoneShop is an abysmal new sitcom written by Phil Bowker, a senior comedy executive. If nothing else, it gives budding comedy writers a window into Bowker's comic sensibilities, should they ever pitch a script to him. He evidently thinks shouting is a substitute for funny dialogue, and that swaggering, sub-Ali G patois is intrinsically hilarious.

Set in the ruthless environs of a high-street mobile phone retailer, it's stocked with irritating, unlikeable characters, one of whom exhibits the precise mannerisms of David Brent.

Ricky Gervais actually script-edited the pilot last year, but that's no reason for actor Tom Bennett to pay slavish tribute to him. It's a small mercy he isn't playing the needy, buffoonish boss character.

Woefully unfunny, charmless and inept, PhoneShop is the kind of comedy that dribbles contempt at its presumed audience of easily pleased young adults. Please, resist it in droves.

When a new sitcom gets a big tick from comedy aristocrats like Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, you approach it with enormous expectations. And while PhoneShop includes some sharp lines and clever ideas, it's also irritating, which blurs out much of the good stuff. Double act Ashley (Andrew Brooke) and Jerwayne (Javone Prince) both talk like Ali G, but have nothing especially funny to say. Their schtick is to bully the freshly recruited, drippy salesman, Christopher (Tom Bennett), who they call Newman. This quickly gets boring but their dynamic never evolves beyond lions-picking-on-an-antelope. If you can be bothered it might be worth one more look but at best this series opener feels like an ill-cast early draft.

There was a lot of love on Channel 4's website following the pilot for PhoneShop, which is just as well, because it had been greenlit for a full series before it even went to air.

This well observed, sharply written comedy reunites Ashley and Jerwayne (Andrew Brooke and Javone Prince) to spout more incomprensible rapid-fire banter.

Having survived the infamous one-day trial, Newman (Tom Bennett) is now an official employee and Pay As You Go girl Janine (Emma Fryer) longs to be taken seriously enough to be assistant manager.

Thankfully, there's no mention of manager Lance's sex addiction tonight. Instead, he's fixated on legendary former employee Gary Patel, who is currently at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Meanwhile, a visit from rivals in Croydon forces them all to close ranks to battle the outsiders.

It's very funny, but viewers outside London whose ears aren't assaulted by urban youth-speak every day might want need reassurance that yes, we are still in Britain.

The second of Channel 4's sitcom pilots is written by the man behind Pulling (Phil Bowker) and script-edited by Ricky Gervais - yet though funny in places the humour can be a bit laddish and idiotic. PhoneShop is about the employees of a mobile phone shop, and tonight, new recruit Chris (Tom Bennett) faces the notorious sales trial.

The second sitcom try-out in C4's Comedy Showcase season, and this one packs some more heavyweight comedy credentials. It boasts Ricky Gervais as script editor - a solid gold seal of approval. Disappointingly, there's no sign of former EastEnders Dean Gaffney or Shaun Williamson who manned the phone shop in Extras. This one is staffed by Ashley and Jerwayne (Andrew Brooke and Javone Prince).

Emma Fryer's in it too, still wearing that dazed, sleepwalker expression that she used in BBC2's Home Time.

Tom Bennett is new boy Chris, trying to make his first sale in the cut-throat world of 24-month contracts and impress his sex addict boss (played by Martin Trenaman).

Written, directed and produced by Phil Bowker (who also produced Sharon Horgan's Pulling) I hope this one gets the go-ahead as a series too.

The cast gel together as if they've worked together for years and even manage to turn BNP leader Nick Griffin into joke fodder.